Lee Child took up Joe Konrath’s invitation for an Authors United signatory to explain their thinking further by sending a written statement for posting on Konrath’s blog. The original post was broken into pieces (so that you could only read Child’s remarks with Konrath’s responses interspersed), but it has been reposted so that you can read Child’s statement in its entirety (and skip everything else if you want to stop there). He writes in part: “So why did I sign my friend Doug’s letter? Because of what I know, and what I can guess. I’ve known Amazon people for 17 […]
Archives for September 2014
People: New Unified Children’s Publishing Division at Hachette UK
Hachette UK announced the creation of a unified children’s division, Hachette Children’s Group, bringing together Hachette Children’s, Orion Children’s, Little, Brown Children’s and Orchard Books as of January 1. Managing director of Egmont UK Hilary Murray Hill will join the company to serve as CEO of the new division on January 13. Marlene Johnson will run the line as ceo until then, and will retire from Hachette at the end of January 2015. Clare Somerville will be deputy managing director. No other jobs are affected by the consolidation; the company says “the aim of the merger is to develop new strengths in children’s […]
Sales Rise, But So Does the Seasonal Loss At Scholastic
In Scholastic’s fiscal first quarter, ending August 31, sales rose $7.5 million, up less than 3 percent at $284 million, but their seasonal loss rose more — increasing by the same amount, at $53.4 million, and 16 percent higher than the loss a year ago. (The company generally has a loss in the first quarter, since schools are not in session.) At $1.05 per share, that loss was significantly more than anticipated by analysts, who were expecting a loss of 84 cents a share. But the higher loss did not change the company’s guidance for the full fiscal year. The […]
People
Julia Cheiffetz will return to HarperCollins as executive editor for Dey Street Books, starting October 6. She had been editorial director at Amazon Publishing until recently, prior to which she worked at Harper and Harper Studio. Another longtime Amazon executive announced plans to leave the company. Bill Carr, 47, has worked at Amazon for 15 years, and currently serves as head of digital music and video. He plans to leave at the end of the year. A spokesperson told the WSJ Carr wanted to spend time with family and “has other plans after that but not in the near term […]
Awards: Piketty Leads FT/McKinsey Shortlist
The nominees for the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year award were announced Wednesday afternoon. The winner will be named November 11. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (Norton) Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull (Random House) Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught up with Rupert Murdoch, by Nick Davies (Faber and Faber) House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession, and How We Can Prevent It From Happening Again, by […]
Amazon Rolls Out Kindle Unlimited In UK, At £7.99 A Month
On Wednesday Amazon launched their Kindle Unlimited subscription program in the UK, charging more on a relative basis, priced at £7.99 a month (or a little over $13, or 30 percent more than the US version). The offering is otherwise very similar to the US version, featuring a licensed deal for Harry Potter and a pay-by-the-book deal for Hunger Games, but no Lord of the Rings (which is controlled by Harper in the UK, rather than Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Most of the books are KDP self-published titles and Amazon Publishing books, with some titles from independent, non-agency UK publishers. We […]